Belgium

Brussels was supposed to be a transition city, just somewhere to stay before we headed onto the next place. We were here for two days and we ended up packing in a lot of stuff into them.

We went to a Japanese film festival where we saw a new spaghetti western with Quentin Tarentino (hilarious),


Magic changing lights building (should’ve had Tetris)

Walked round a few markets

Saw the birds nest like sculpture (soon to be replaced by a mall)


Had lunch

The little girl you can see on the fountain was doing laps around the perimeter. A few laps after this picture was taken she was getting a bit too confident and a tad to fast and took a slip and fell in (as Rachel had been secretly hoping). She was ok, some passer by hoisted her out, it was all just a bit of light entertainment.

After the fountain incident we were all tuckered out so we lay in the sun.

Lastly we went for a ride out to the big globe nucleus atomic building. It’s ok but we didn’t go in.

So we are finally starting to feel better, the weather is warming up and we’re at our first stop in Belgium. Brugge is a pretty cool place, sure it’s over touristed and a tad fake but when you get here it all kinda melts away into a warm pool of chocolate.

We stayed in an out of the way place off the tourist trail, nice BnB with an old Belgian lady. There was a chocliatair just round the corner to whom we visited twice daily to just try that one that was next to the one we got last time, you know it had the swirls.

Long way up the belfry, you might wanna take the lift

To combat the extra intake of fats we were getting from the unnecessary (but oh so good) local ‘foods’ we got our walking shoes on and went round the standard churchy big building impressiveness that abounds in the old town. There was once a lot of money in the town which built all the churches and buildings but this dried up with the receding shoreline and hence the trade.

Contemplating the few hundred stair climb to the top of the belfry


Down is so much easier

If she wanna go ta da playground she get’s ta go ta da playground

More looking up at buildings into the blue sky

If you hadn’t caught on there is heaps of chocolate in Bruges, so much so that they have a museum dedicated to it. Which we diligently went round reading all the guff, slightly speeding through the end so we could get to the demonstration and tasting.

Another thing the Belgians have a handle on is beer. So many different types, flavors and varieties that it’s just plain rude not to try a few. Again they have a museum type deal which goes through the only working brewery in Bruges and the tour guide goes over the making and process …blah blah blah…. there was tasting at the end.

Sitting on the top of the brewery..happy

Still not happy that we were burning off the extra calories we went on a bike tour to an outlying town. Sweet for us as there was only one other guy on the tour so we pretty much had the guide to ourselves. The outlying town (Dam) has it own churches and niceness as it became the main port after the shoreline retreated from Bruges. It was easy as to get to, just get on a Napoleonic canal which directly links the two towns.

Look mum no teeth

The combination of indulging and trying in vain to burn it off lead to an afternoon of laxing in the sun at a local park. Reading books and consoling ourselves with more chocolate.

So Brugge, too much chocolate, too much beer and too much chips (they have a newly opened museum for this as well). But probably the most unexpectedly good place we have been so far.